Apple's new patent could make your iPad icons show their age … with wrinkles

Want to clear your iPad screen of all those app icons? Just tilt the device, and they fall into a corner.

You may get that kind of real-world action if Apple implements a new patent it was awarded yesterday.

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U.S. Patent No. 8,839,150, entitled “Graphical objects that respond to touch or motion input,” brings the fun of game-based objects to the icons in your user interface.

The patent, which could be used for either OS X or iOS, emphasizes touch and implies the use of accelerometers and gyroscopes. It describes using your finger to draw a circle around two-dimensional assets like a file, folder, e-book, or video, thus turning them into three-dimensional graphical objects.

Those graphical objects can then act as they might in the real world.

These objects acquire mass, either derived from the object’s total file size or perhaps its visual size. As in a video game, the graphical objects then respond to physical forces such as gravity, friction, or drag. A larger or heavier object might move more slowly than a lighter one, for instance.

The patent also raises the possibility of a variety of unique interactions, such as moving a graphical object by physically moving the device.

A group of graphical objects could be “poured” into another connected device that is represented on the screen, for instance, falling from one side to the other as they transfer. Shaking your device could sift the objects, causing heavier objects to sink to bottom. Pinching a graphical object could compress its assets.

The patent also specifies that “the visual appearance of graphical objects on the user interface can be adjusted to indicate the age of data” inside. Specifically mentioned are the ways that real objects age, by losing color, shine, or elasticity, as well as rusting. Developers should note that the patent does not rule out wrinkles.

Recently edited files could also be colored some shade of red to show they are “hot,” and older files can be blueish or “cold.”

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The object’s age apparently could refer to the oldest data in the object — for instance, if you have a photo from ten years ago in an otherwise frequently updated folder. Or it might indicate how old the most recently updated asset is, so that saving a file in a folder refreshes its age profile.

If implemented, you may need to continually tend to each graphical object on your desktop. Like needy plants, you would rejuvenate them by showing attention. Otherwise, graphical objects on your device might wither away before your eyes.

Via Apple Insider